Smoke in the Room

  He grabbed underwear, pants and a T-shirt before continuing to the bathroom where he locked the door, pissed, showered and brushed his teeth. As he dressed, he could hear someone moving around but this place was still too unfamiliar for him to recognise its aural signals.

  He found Katie lying on her back on the sofa, smoking. She was wearing his good blue shirt, the tails of it tucked between her thighs. The sense of regret that had gnawed at him since he woke bit down hard at the sight of her reddened knees.

  ‘Smoke?’ she said when he sat on the chair across from her.

  He shook his head. His throat felt raw from cigarettes he didn’t remember smoking. ‘Listen, Katie, I want to apologise.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘For?’

  ‘Last night. Taking advantage of you.’

  She turned a fraction of an inch towards him. Her eyebrows shot up again and stayed arched. ‘Um, I don’t know what you think happened, but you could hardly hold yourself upright last night. Like, I’m really sorry to bust your macho fantasy or whatever, but you couldn’t have taken advantage of a newborn baby.’

  ‘Right, okay, I just . . .’ He tried to read her expression. Amused? Angry? Possibly disinterested. The eyebrow thing was a put-on, he figured that much. But her eyes were too squinty to read clearly, and her mouth stayed puckered to receive the cigarette. ‘I just wanted you to know I’m not in a position to start any kind of relationship right now. It’s nothing personal, I just have some issues that I need to settle and I don’t think getting involved with you – with anyone – is a great idea.’

  She smoked. Her expression did not change. Adam’s T-shirt was plastered to his back with detoxifying sweat. He needed good coffee and fresh air. He needed to not be stared at by this inscrutable rat-faced girl.

  ‘Okay, so, um, are we cool?’

  ‘I am.’ She lowered her hand to the floor, dropping her cigarette into an abandoned Pepsi can. ‘You, on the other hand, are like the – the – fuck, what’s the word? Antith-something? Means opposite sort of?’

  ‘Antithesis?’

  ‘Yes! That’s what you are: the antithesis of cool. You’re like the tensest person alive. It’s probably why you have erection difficulties. Maybe if you relaxed a little you’d be able to keep it up.’

  ‘Christ.’ Adam stood. ‘Forget I spoke.’

  ‘Geez Louise, take a joke, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. See you round.’

  ‘Wait.’ She pulled herself up. ‘Look, I’m sorry. We had fun last night, you know, taking the piss. I thought you were okay with it. I didn’t know that sober you’d be all serious and sensitive.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m just . . . I was trying to clear the air – be mature.’

  Katie lit another cigarette. ‘I don’t get why people are always going on about maturity like it’s a great achievement. I think mature people are kind of shallow. They never let anything affect them.’ She took a deep drag and exhaled loudly. ‘They just nod and say a few solemn words and get on with their dead-hearted, responsible, mature lives. Not me. I let things get to me. I react. I overreact.’ She took another deep drag. ‘What’s the point of doing anything if you’re going to mature it all away? It just makes stuff not mean anything.’

  ‘You’re dropping ash all over your shirt,’ he said. ‘All over my shirt, actually.’

  She looked down and brushed the ash off her chest. ‘See, that’s an example.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Me wearing your shirt. When I got out of the shower this morning I saw your shirt lying on the floor. I picked it up and I thought how I’d love to put it on, but I shouldn’t because you’d freak out and think I was besotted with you or something and then I thought, well, hell, I am besotted and why shouldn’t I be and why shouldn’t he know it? So there.’

  ‘Katie, listen –’ He stopped, noticing the thin white lines on the inside of her thighs. Not a trick of light as he’d thought last night, but a ladder of scars starting a few inches above her knees and climbing to the hem of her man-style grey boxer shorts.

  ‘Motorbike accident.’ She shifted, pressing her thighs together, leaning over and resting her elbows on her knees. ‘Hey, you never told me how you got your scar.’

  ‘What? Oh, car crash. Slippery road, hit a tree. Cracked a rib and cut my face a little.’

  ‘Anyone die?’

  ‘No. I was alone. Listen, I think you’re –’

  ‘You ever been in gaol?’

  ‘What? No. Look –’

  ‘You’ve got heaps of tatts for someone who hasn’t done time. My mate Robbie told me that the reason people get tatts in gaol is because they want to show they own their own body. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds good, huh?’

  ‘Um, yeah. Katie –’

  ‘Did you really used to work in a shoe shop?’

  ‘What? Oh, yeah. Kind of. My friend made these, ah, you’d say thongs – out of woven hemp, and um, I was front of house. It was more a stall than –’

  ‘Right.’ She sat bolt upright and clapped her hands. ‘So you got plans for today?’

  As it happened, he didn’t.

  3.

  Accustomed as he was to real estate agents who called a tin shanty a classic Australian abode, Graeme was concerned when Mrs Lewis described her Broadway flat as nothing fancy, but in a good possie. This meant, he guessed, uncovered concrete floors, boarded windows, a fist hole in at least one wall, but right next to a bus stop.

  When he saw that the place (which was, indeed, a couple of feet from a bus stop) was perfectly liveable, he found himself gushing that it was wonderful, it was lovely.

  ‘You reckon?’ said Mrs Lewis’s granddaughter. She had been charged with showing him around since the landlady herself worked weeknights. The pair stood side by side and surveyed the living room: a burnt orange lounge suite, a white laminated coffee table on which sat a full ashtray, and a matching card table on which there were two smudged wine glasses. There were magazines on the lounge, on the floor and on both tables. An old-fashioned dial phone sat on an armchair, its receiver dangling over the side. The charcoal carpet looked clean and the walls were unmarked. Not lovely at all, but not as terrible as Mrs Lewis’s nothing fancy had suggested.

  ‘You don’t have to say you like it just to be nice.’

  ‘But I do. It’s big and in much better nick than a lot of places I’ve seen.’

  ‘Yeah. Gran’s pretty fussy about maintenance and stuff. Oh, hey, your room – well, your potential room – is in even better nick, because almost everything is brand spanking new. Come on.’ The girl led Graeme down a hallway.

  ‘Voila!’ she said, opening the door at the end of the hallway and sweeping her arm out. The room was just as Mrs Lewis had described: small, clean and furnished. There was a desk of unstained timber against the wall on his left, and a matching bookshelf, which held The Macquarie Dictionary, Anne of Green Gables and Touch Typing in Ten Lessons. A faded world map, with a lone pin in the middle of the Tasman Sea, hung over the desk. Under the window was a single bed, and beside it was a lamp table covered in cloth the same pale green as the bedspread and curtains. Graeme palmed the inside of the door and was relieved to feel the cold steel of a slide-lock.

  The girl hovered near the bed. ‘It’s kind of poky, I know, but Gran made it look all right. The bed and that little table are brand new. The other stuff’s from when it was a study. Not that I ever used it as that. It was more of a junk room. Although I was studying for a while, secretarial course. God, that was boring, but Gran had signed me up and paid and everything so I stuck it out awhile. Never did the homework in here, though, because of course it had to be done on computer and I don’t have one, so I usually ended up at the library and – well, that’s beside the point, which is that the room is yours if you think you can put up with sharing a flat with me.’

  ‘Is there a lot to put up with?’ he asked, trying for the affectionate, teasing tone he heard his colleagues use.
br />   ‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head and opened her watery brown eyes wide. ‘I’m not, like, a party animal or anything. I know I seem a bit hyper, but I’m actually very dull. I hardly ever party and when I do I’m really, really quiet, not like that metal head next door. He plays his try-hard, baby-thrash crap at all hours of the – oh, but not every day or even close to it and you can hardly hear it from back here, seriously. Hey, forget the neighbour, you should meet Adam.’

  Graeme followed her back up the hallway, wondering how many potential tenants Mrs Lewis had lost by allowing this buzzy little bee to play tour guide.

  She stopped outside a closed door and stood on her tiptoes to whisper in Graeme’s ear. ‘I’ll warn you now, he’s a Yank, but don’t let that put you off. He’s nice enough and you get used to the accent.’

  ‘I’m not bothered by –’ he started, before seeing the tightness at the corners of her mouth. He smiled to show he was in on what she apparently thought was a joke.

  ‘Adam?’ She knocked and entered without waiting for an answer. Graeme heard what could have been a wet snore and glimpsed a hairy, tattooed leg hanging over the edge of a bed.

  He backed away. ‘We can meet later.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Come on.’

  He peered around the edge of the doorway. The man in the bed was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. He appeared to be naked, his tattooed legs and torso broken up by a swathe of pink sheets.

  ‘Graeme, this is Adam,’ the girl said, with the same gesture she’d used to introduce each room of the flat. She stepped across to the bed and touched the man lightly on the shoulder, smiling with what Graeme suspected was pride. He saw that her awkward, chatty openness could be a selling point rather than a turn-off, and that although she was not pretty, she was young and well-proportioned and this combined with her vulnerability and warmth would be more than enough for a certain kind of man.

  ‘Hey,’ said the man in the bed, nodding once.

  ‘G’day. Sorry to bother you, mate.’

  ‘You didn’t. So, you moving in?’

  Graeme looked at Katie. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘Geez,’ she said, coming over and punching him on the arm. ‘Don’t sound so excited.’

  It was only a twenty-minute walk from the hotel to work, but this morning Graeme had two suitcases as well as his briefcase so he took a taxi. He arrived at the Wattle Street office just after 7.30 am, and although he’d never seen anyone else here before quarter to nine, he aimed to stash the bags before eight just in case.

  The Refugee Assistance Foundation had purchased the single-storey terrace five years ago. There’d been no money left for renovation, so it remained in its original configuration. The only additions were a small sign on the door and a wheelchair ramp where the six front steps used to be. The living room was now the reception and waiting area, the first bedroom was Graeme’s office, the second was Jenny’s and the third was shared by the three caseworkers. There was one bathroom, a small kitchen and an even smaller covered courtyard out the back. Filing cabinets and archive boxes were crammed into every available space. Finding a hiding place for two suitcases wasn’t easy.

  Finally, at around 8.05 am, Graeme realised he could simply put them behind his desk. They’d only be spotted if someone came around his side and he could not recall that happening in the last five years.

  Bags safely out of sight, he headed to the bathroom, removed his shirt, splashed his face with cold water and used antiseptic hand wipes from the medicine cabinet to wipe the sweat from his underarms. Every January was longer than the last. He was tired of the sting of sunburn and the smell of greasy, skin-suffocating sunscreen. He was tired of having to wash his face ten times a day, of resisting the urge to scratch the skin prickling beneath the hair on his chest and of waking each morning to the itch of new mosquito bites on his ankles.

  The front door jangled open. ‘Is anyone here?’ Jenny called.

  ‘Just me,’ Graeme called back, buttoning his shirt. He checked himself in the mirror over the sink. Despite the cold water, his cheeks were flushed and his thinning brown hair stuck to his head as though slathered with oil. His blue eyes, which used to inspire gasps and giggles in Africa and Asia, looked almost colourless, the lids above them droopy and the skin below bruised purple.

  ‘Morning,’ Jenny said when he emerged. She stood in the hallway, flipping through a pile of mail, looking fresh and cool in a knee-length tropical print sundress, her thick red hair tied in a ponytail. Jenny was in her late forties, but looked and sounded years younger – an advantage, Graeme supposed, when dealing with young arrivals, but not when arguing with detention centre administrators and guards.

  ‘Boy, I love this time of year,’ she said, glancing up from the mail and smiling. ‘The streets are practically empty. Halves my commuting time. You too, huh?’

  ‘Mmm. Traffic is nice and light at the moment.’ He headed past her to his office.

  ‘I got a fright when I found the door unlocked. Your car’s not out front.’

  Graeme paused and turned. ‘It’s at the mechanic’s. Since last week, actually.’

  She blinked at him. ‘I hadn’t noticed it missing. So much for my brilliant observational skills!’ She stepped towards him. ‘Anything serious?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘So expensive, aren’t they? Cars. Wish I could do without one.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Graeme went into his office and closed the door before she could speak again. Behind his desk, the suitcases pressed into his legs and his face burned. The absurdity of it. A middle-aged man sneaking around, hiding bags, telling petty lies. But he couldn’t see any other way. First it would be why had he sold his car, then why had he moved from his Paddington terrace, then why only two suitcases and why a share-flat in backpacker territory, then the questions would get more general, the suspicion and supposition throbbing through the words. Relationship trouble? Money problems? Anything you need to talk about, Graeme, anything at all? Jenny a psychiatrist and the others social workers. Who knows how far they’d push?

  As manager, he had a copy of everyone’s daily out-call schedules and so could be reasonably sure of their movements. He timed his visits to the kitchen or bathroom to minimise the likelihood of running into anyone, but stood with his ear to the door for a few seconds before he stepped out just to be sure. He used his intercom to speak to Sherry at the front desk and did so in a short, sharp manner that suggested busyness.

  Not that the busyness wasn’t genuine. The government-led xenophobia that had swept the country in the first years of the new century had passed, but the refugees stewing in detention centres were not much better off being ignored rather than detested. As the outrage of dissenters subsided, so did donations and bequests, and the Foundation’s permanent staff was now half the size of that Graeme had inherited.

  He spent the morning completing the social workers’ admin: typing up and collating reports, faxing off visitation requests and searching out the contact details of in-country relatives. At 2 pm, he got to item one on his own to-do list: a funding application due that day. He copied the bulk of the proposal from the last, failed application, inserted details of several recent interventions, updated the costings, proofread the document and emailed it through four minutes before deadline.

  After the last shout of goodnight had echoed through the building, Graeme spent half an hour making notes about eco refugees for a submission to the senate inquiry on carbon emissions trading. It was enough time to ensure none of his colleagues would be still dawdling out the front. He slid his suitcases out from behind the desk and headed off to his new home.

  Graeme felt like an intruder as he let himself in. He called out hello but there was no reply. A haze hung over the living room. He put down his bags and picked up the ashtray on the coffee table to check that a cigarette had not been left burning. It was overfull and ash spilt out the second he moved it. He carried it through to the kitchen and emptied it into the garbage bi
n, then rinsed it in the sink and set it to drain on the windowsill. As he left the kitchen he heard a low moan from the other side of the wall.

  Back in the living room, he opened the window and stood for a minute watching the street below. He knew that come late February, the area would be infested with uni students, but for now the footpaths were quiet. A woman in a post office uniform sat at the bus stop, a phone to her ear. Across the road, two teenage boys lounged against the wall outside the kebab shop, drinking from giant Coca-Cola cups. An old man walked past them, a small white dog trailing behind him.

  The road was busier – a bus or delivery van or 4WD passed every few seconds – but it wasn’t as congested as it would be in a few weeks’ time when the suburbanites returned to their city jobs and the school buses re-started for the year.

  He shivered as another moan – louder and longer this time – sounded. He could make out rustling and urgent murmurs. He crept down the hallway, stopping outside the door on the right. After years of accessing sex only through the simulations of paid performers, he was surprised at how moving the sound of real lovemaking could be. Eyes closed, his forehead against the doorframe, sweat trickling down his neck, he could have been twenty-five again, in some African backwater listening through paper-thin walls or hastily hung curtains as new recruits screwed loudly and indiscriminately, desperate to drown out the sounds and stench of death.

  This place did not smell of death, but neither was it suffused with the freshness and energy one might expect of a lovers’ retreat. It was as musty with defeat and apathy as an old-aged home. Still, it was better than the other places in this price range he’d looked at. At least here, he’d have a room to himself and an indoor toilet.

  Graeme did not see his new flatmates that night. After unpacking, he checked the kitchen but found only a cask of moselle, a jar of vegemite and container of margarine. He went to the 7–11 across the road and bought bread, cheese, coffee, milk and orange juice. When he came back, the flat was silent. He ate a cheese sandwich in front of the late news and then went to bed.